Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976), German philosopher, who developed existential phenomenology and has been widely regarded as the most original 20th-century philosopher.

Heidegger was born in Messkirch, Baden. He studied Roman Catholic theology and then philosophy at the University of Freiburg, where he was an assistant to Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Heidegger began teaching at Freiburg in 1915. From 1923 to 1928 he taught at Marburg University. He then returned to Freiburg in 1928, inheriting Husserl's position as professor of philosophy. Because of his public support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and 1934, Heidegger's professional activities were restricted in 1945, and controversy surrounded his university standing until his retirement in 1959.

BEING AND TIME

Besides Husserl, Heidegger was especially influenced by the pre-Socratics, by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, and by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In developing his theories, Heidegger rejected traditional philosophic terminology in favor of an individual interpretation of the works of past thinkers. He applied original meanings and etymologies to individual words and expressions, and coined hundreds of new, complex words. In his most important and influential work, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time, 1927), Heidegger was concerned with what he considered the essential philosophical question: What is it, to be? This led to the question of what kind of "being" human beings have. They are, he said, thrown into a world that they have not made but that consists of potentially useful things, including cultural as well as natural objects. Because these objects come to humanity from the past and are used in the present for the sake of future goals, Heidegger posited a fundamental relation between the mode of being of objects, of humanity, and of the structure of time.

The individual is, however, always in danger of being submerged in the world of objects, everyday routine, and the conventional, shallow behavior of the crowd. The feeling of dread (Angst) brings the individual to a confrontation with death and the ultimate meaninglessness of life, but only in this confrontation can an authentic sense of Being and of freedom be attained.

LATER WORK

After 1930, Heidegger turned, in such works as Einführung in die Metaphysik (An Introduction to Metaphysics, 1953), to the interpretation of particular Western conceptions of being. He felt that, in contrast to the reverent ancient Greek conception of being, modern technological society has fostered a purely manipulative attitude that has deprived Being and human life of meaning-a condition he called nihilism. Humanity has forgotten its true vocation and must recover the deeper understanding of Being (achieved by the early Greeks and lost by subsequent philosophers) to be receptive to new understandings of Being.

INFLUENCE

Heidegger's original treatment of such themes as human finitude, death, nothingness, and authenticity led many observers to associate him with existentialism, and his work had a crucial influence on French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Heidegger, however, eventually repudiated existentialist interpretations of his work. His thought directly influenced the work of French philosophers Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida and of German sociologist Jurgen Habermas. Since the 1960s his influence has spread beyond continental Europe and has had an increasing impact on philosophy in English-speaking countries worldwide.